Struggle

Legend has it that there was this young child, who lost his legs below the knees, when a boulder came rolling down from the mountain behind his home, and ended up on top of him crushing his legs. To calm the young boy, his mother would tell him that some day he would climb to the top of that mountain. One day, as a young man, he decided to climb the mountain on his stumps. Some distance up the mountain his stumps started to bleed, so he wrapped rags he found along the way, around each one. Winter hit. He found an abandoned shed, and spent the winter writing about weather. Spring arrived. He continued his climb. To preserve his stumps he found a goat and road it, until the goat gave out and died. He buried the goat, put up a marker saying, “here lies a good goat”. Climbing further up the mountain on hands and stumps, his hands began to bleed, so he tore pieces of cloth from his coat and wrapped his hands with them. Winter set in once again. He found a cave, gathered wood, created a small fire and passed his idle time using a sharp edged rock, along with dirt and spit to scratch drawings onto the cave’s walls of all he had seen climbing up the mountain. Another spring arrived. He started to climb the mountain once again, but his hands gave out from the strenuous work from his work etching. To give them a rest, he used his elbows to slowly drag himself up the rocky ledges of the mountain. One day he paused and looked up, squinting through the hot summer rays, to determine how much further he had to climb. To the best of his guess he still had seventy to eighty percent more to go. Winter began to set in again. He spotted a clump of grass in a small plain, crawled toward it, began to eat it, and within minutes lost consciousness. He woke up, and asked if he was in heaven or hell. Neither was the reply. “You’re in a rescue tent we set up. Climbers found you lying in a patch of weeds and requested our help.” “They gave us directions: pass the newly built weather forecast station, then keep climbing until you pass Good Goat Ridge, keep climbing until you reach Cave Art Point, then keep climbing until you reach an open plain full of scrub brush.” He was told he had survived the coldest winter on record. But, unfortunately, the rescue team had to amputate his left leg up to the hip, and his left arm up to the shoulder. Gangrene had set in. “What’s your name?” he was asked. “Ben Struggling,” he replied. “Where do you live Ben?” “I’d rather not say.” “Well, what do you want us to do with you? Take you down?” “Leave me here.” “Ben, no one lives here. No on has come this far. You have no limbs. Only a right stump, and a very weakened right arm.” “We’ll leave you this tent. And some cans of food.” Ben Struggling rehabilitated his body, and began his climb once again. It was slower this time. He reached a ledge, stretched his quivering right arm out to a small protruding rock jetting out from the mountain wall and grabbed hold. He swung his right stump up onto another higher ledge, pulled his torso up, and found a spot to sit on. He lay back, resting his head on a small rough surface, looked up at the swirling clouds, took a deep breath, and for the first time broke out into a smile. His coat was in tatters, but his joy overcame the biting cold chill. At that moment, he shouted out to the image of his mother he saw in his mind. “You were right, I survived the loss of my legs,I’m climbing this high mountain.” His joy broke out into uncontrollable happiness. He laughed loudly. At that moment, a gust of wind blew across the ledge and took Ben Struggling’s weary torso to the very edge of the mountain. His right hand grabbed for a smell crevice. His fingers digging deeply into the sharp edge of the crevice’s side, cutting painfully into his fingers. The wind abated, and Ben stabilized his body, his fingers spurting blood. He took off his shirt and as best he could wrapped his hand tightly. But not tightly enough to stop the blood from flowing. Ben Struggling felt consciousness leaving him. Slowly the shirt filled with blood and slipped off Ben Struggling’s hand. Right then the wind came with force again. The shirt flattened out on the side of a bolder and stayed there. But Ben Struggling’s body rolled with the force of the wind and was carried off the side of the mountain Climbers, far below, viewed a strange object flying through the air, at one moment having the shape of a boomerang, at another the look of what it was: a frail, bony, emaciated torso. Then it just seemed to fly apart until nothing more of it could be viewed by the naked eye. Future climbers marveled at the beautiful view from the ledge of the spot on the mountain where nothing remained but the outline of a blood stained shirt now called: The View from Superman’s Cape. Meanwhile Ben Struggling crawled to the entrance of a gate “What’s beyond the gate?”, he asked. “Heaven” is the reply from the gatekeeper. “What’s your name stranger?” “Ben Struggling.” “Is that your full name?” “No, it’s Benjamin Frederick Struggling”. “Come in, Benjamin Fredrick Struggling.” As Ben did, to his surprise, he viewed the rest of the mountain he had yet to climb. As new climbers found their way up the never before reached portion of the mountain, they reported hearing what sounded like a faint stump hitting the side of the cliff above their heads. “It sounds like the stump is struggling to reach each new elevation,” they said. For many years climbers were known to have used the sound of it as a guidance system. The first climbers who finally reached the top of the mountain christened it, Angel’s Stump. And so you see, it is the struggle that counts whether here or there. It is the struggle that forever determines the quality of the soul. It’s not the march down the mountain that produces the will in us to complete a task, but the struggle in climbing the mountain that allows our wills to gain power to conquer what’s hard in the everyday struggles of life. And the struggle goes on century after century, person after person.